ATHENS, Ga. (UCFKnights.com) – The UCF men's tennis team's Korey Lovett advanced to the round of 32 after defeating Kentucky's Ryotaro Matsumura, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4) at the NCAA Singles Championships at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex Wednesday.
"Korey did a great job of getting out of trouble today," UCF head coach John Roddick said. "He played two really good tiebreakers and that was the difference today. It was a great effort to come back and pull that match out."
No. 42 Lovett dropped the first set, 6-2, forcing many games to deuce, but was unable to close them out.
"I just wanted to do my best to stay in the match," Lovett said. "Once I got into it a little more, things started to go my way."
In the second set, the two went back-and-forth, each holding serve until it was tied up at 6-6, forcing a tiebreaker to decide the second set and possibly the match.
Lovett started the tiebreaker up 2-0 but No. 66 Matsumura won three consecutive points to take a 3-2 lead. Lovett and Matsumura exchanged points, giving the Wildcat a 4-3 lead. Lovett won four straight points to seal the second set victory and force a third.
The third and final set looked very similar to the second, with both players holding serve. At 5-5, Lovett broke Matsumura to take a 6-5 lead, but the Kentucky player broke him back, forcing a tiebreaker to determine the match.
In the match-deciding tiebreaker, Matsumura held serve to start up 1-0, but Lovett followed suit to go up 2-1. This pattern continued until Lovett broke Matsumura to go up 5-4 before a 30-minute lightning delay.
"Going into the delay, the biggest thing for me was to chill out and focus on what I wanted to do with my serve during the next point," Lovett said.
Following the delay, Lovett forced a backhand passing winner to go up 6-4. He then secured the third set victory and his berth into the round of 32 with a service winner.
Lovett faces top-seeded Mikael Torpegaard of Ohio State on Thursday. The match is scheduled to start at 9 a.m.
